The Secret Love of a Gentleman (21 page)

“We will see each other in the autumn. It is only a few weeks until September.”

She smiled at him. “I know. I am being selfish and wishing you need not go.”

She slipped from his hold, rose and picked up her nightgown from the floor. He watched her place it over her head in silence.

Everything he ought to say was locked in his throat. He could not stay, and, Lord, if he proposed to her now where could he offer her for a home? A room in one of John’s homes… That life would kill him.

The fabric sheathed her body.

He climbed from the bed, stood up and gripped her hands. “This will be our private goodbye. I will not be able to say it properly later, but you will know this is want I want to say before I go. I have fallen in love with you—”

“You will forget me the minute you reach town.” It was as though she fought against his expression of his feelings. As though she was afraid to believe him. But she’d told him once that she’d thought her husband had loved her, and that his affection had died.

“I will not forget you and I shall look forward to seeing you when you come. You will still come?”

“Yes.”

“Then trust me until then at least.” He’d never experienced this before, he had no idea how deep his feelings ran compared to others, whether they would stand the test of time, and yet he did believe himself in love with her. The emotion inside him was in his heart and his soul, not just his groin and his gut.

She nodded, but her eyes shone with tears. He brushed one away with his thumb as it slipped from her eyelashes. “I will miss you.”

“I will miss you too.”

The light within the room had become white. She ought to leave him. But he would have no other chance to kiss her again. He clasped her head and brought her lips to his. They kissed for moments as she gripped his shoulders while his fingers ran into her hair.

He broke the kiss, promising her the only things he could. “I will write in hidden words to Mary, and you will come to town, and we will see each other then.”

“We will,” she nodded. But then her forehead fell against his shoulder in a silent plea that said
don’t go
.

His arms wrapped around her and he held her for a moment more but, “Sweetheart, you need to leave.”

“I know.” She lifted her head, rose to her toes, and kissed his lips. “When I say goodbye later, I will want to kiss you but you’ll know I cannot.”

He nodded, tears gathering in his throat. This decision to come to Mary and Drew’s had changed his life.

“I will go.”

“I will see you downstairs in a while.”

“Yes,”

She did not move, though.

He pressed another swift kiss on her lips. “Go, or I will have to carry you back to your room, and then if anyone sees us we would surely be damned.”

She laughed, though it was a hollow sound. Then, at last, she turned away and crossed the room, the fabric of her nightgown whispering about her. When she reached the door she looked back. “Goodbye, Rob.”

“I will see you soon downstairs, and listen for my words in Mary’s letters.”

She nodded, then turned and opened the door and left him. He sat down on the bed and rested his head in his hands, trying to get used to the thoughts in his mind and the feelings in his body. His life had changed entirely in hours. He would have to marry her, regardless of anything else. Morally he would never be able to live with himself if he did not. But there was emotion and affection between them, there was no doubt of that, and he felt it as love now, but their weeks of separation would be a test of that.

A test for both of them, because surely she could be no more certain than him that her feelings had not been affected by their intimacy, and yet she had said “I love you” last night in such a way that he’d believed it without doubt.

He was suddenly afraid of hurting her. He couldn’t marry her and not show the affection and love she deserved.

Damn, he was tying himself in knots.

He did love her. Love was the emotion burning in his chest. He would explore all else when she came to London, when he would be in a better position to make choices over their future.

Chapter 19

Rob kept looking at Caro throughout breakfast and her gaze continually caught on his. Each time heat crept into her cheeks and she looked away.

Drew talked to her as he might any other morning, but this morning she could not find more than a single word to answer, so she responded with yes or no, or any slight acknowledgement, while her heart began to crack.

When they finished breakfast and the clock on the mantel rang out ten strikes, Rob and Mary stood. They left the room together as Drew rose.

When Drew walked past Caro his hand settled on her shoulder and squeezed it gently, then he leant to say, “You will miss him, but we will speak once he’s gone and think of ways to draw you more into the local community. You need more friends, Caro. Things won’t go back to the way they were.”

She looked up and nodded. Then she stood and hugged him, as she had probably not done for years. She had three other half-brothers, but none of them had spoken to her since she’d been a child. But Drew had looked after her for most of her life; even as children he’d been the one she’d turned to.

She longed to be able to share with him how she felt, but that would put Rob in an impossible situation. Yet Rob had left a legacy. Drew was right, she needed to be amongst people. She could not go back to feeling as she had done, she was reliant upon Drew but she need no longer be an emotional chain about his neck.

“Thank you.” She pressed a kiss on his cheek.

“Mary and I do love you, you know. We do not begrudge you a thing.”

“I know.”

When they walked out into the hall her hand rested on his arm.

She clutched it more firmly when she saw the footmen carrying Rob’s luggage out to his curricle.

“Papa! An’ie Ca’o!” She looked up. George was pulling on a nursery maid’s hand as she walked him downstairs.

“Steady, George, you’ll pull Lily over and then you will both topple down the stairs.” Drew‘s arm slipped from Caro’s grip. He crossed the room and met them on about the fourth step from the bottom, then caught his son up. “Come along, you little rogue.”

“My Lord.” Caro glanced up to see their nanny carrying Iris down.

“Come along, then, let us go outside and say goodbye to Uncle Robbie,” Drew said to George.

Caro let Drew and the nanny walk ahead, her heart kicking. She did not want Rob to go.

He was speaking with Mary, watching as his luggage was loaded.

“Uncle Bobbie!”

Rob looked at George as Drew set George on his feet. Then Rob dropped to one knee, unmindful of the dirty gravel as George charged the short distance into his uncle’s arms. Rob hugged him with a generosity and affection that was utterly at odds with his age. None of his male cousins of a similar age gave any regard to the young children. Rob was different, perhaps because he’d never known pain or hurt, or hardship, so he could be open without fear. But his cousins knew nothing of any of those things either and they had grown up self-centred and hedonistic.

It was that difference in him that had drawn her to him first.

When he stood he lifted George with him and looked at her. She smiled as her skin heated, then she looked at Drew instead.

“Will you come back, Uncle Bobbie?”

“Sometime,” Rob answered, Caro looked at him again. His fingers tousled the boy’s hair. “Or…” Rob looked at Drew, “Will I see him when you come to town in the autumn. Are you intending to come this year? I know you usually do.”

“Probably, although we’ve not discussed it,” Drew answered.

“We will, otherwise we have to wait until Christmas to see everyone,” Mary concluded, as she took Iris from the nanny. “I want to see Mama and Papa, Andrew.”

“Then we will,” Drew said, with a note of humour.

“I suggested to Caro yesterday, that if you do, she should consider coming. It would be the final boundary broken if she did.” Rob was looking at Drew, but his words were for her, he was tying her into their agreement.

It touched her to know he genuinely wanted her to go.

His gaze shifted from Drew to her and he smiled again.

Heat flooded her cheeks.

He looked at Mary and Iris and carried George over to join them. George‘s arm gripped about Rob’s neck.

“Goodbye, little one,” Rob touched Iris’s cheek as she looked up at him. Then he leaned to kiss Mary’s cheek. “Mary.”

“If you need anything, Rob, you know you are always welcome here.”

“I know.” He straightened up.

“Would you like to pat my horses one last time, George?”

“Yes,” George’s voice brimmed with excitement.

Caro moved closer when Rob turned, as though she were metal and pulled by a magnet. Mary passed Iris back to the nanny.

Rob’s presence had lit this house up; they were all going to miss him but Caro knew she would miss him the most. Her heart cracked a little more as she watched him lift George so he could pet the horses.

A groom held the horses’ heads and the one George patted whinnied, shaking out its mane after George had stroked it, while the other pawed the ground.

“I like you’ ho’ses,” George said as he patted its neck.

“They are rather fine, aren’t they?” Rob patted the animal’s neck too, more firmly.

But his matching pair of horses only reminded Caro that away from here he led a young man’s life. What she had said to him had been true. She had not wished for promises, she expected him to leave here and forget her, and she would not be bitter or hurt, she’d had this summer with him, and she’d shared his bed.

Drew walked forward and held out his hands to take George.

George transferred to his papa and clung about Drew’s neck instead.

When Rob was gone she would hide her sorrow with the children as she’d always done. It would pass.

Mary stepped forward and hugged Rob, wrapping her arms about her brother’s neck. Then she pressed a kiss on his cheek before letting him go. “Thank you for coming to stay, we have all enjoyed your company. I will miss you.”

“Thank you for inviting me. It has felt like my own home for the summer.”

Mary smiled and Rob turned to Drew.

“Goodbye.” Drew stated, holding out a hand.

Rob shook it. “Goodbye. Thank you for your company, you have kept me entertained.”

Drew laughed and patted Rob’s shoulder.

Caro’s heart thumped hard in her chest. It felt as though it would burst. This parting was too painful.

“Caro,” he said, turning to look at her. She stepped forward. This was their very last moment. Her mind filled with the things he’d spoken to her this morning that he could not say here.

“Goodbye,” she said in a quiet voice.

He gripped her hand and squeezed it for an instant, then he bowed and lifted it to his lips, and the kiss on the back of her fingers seemed long, but it was probably only a moment. When he straightened he looked into her eyes. “Thank you for allowing me to come to know you.”

She swallowed back the tears catching in her throat. “Thank you for giving me the courage to do more than I have done in years.”

“The courage was always yours. You did not need me to show it to you.”

Heat burned her skin. He let her hand go. “Goodbye.”

She nodded, no longer able to speak. Her heart was going to shatter.

He turned and climbed up into his carriage. So athletic.

Her heart climbed up there with him.

He flicked the straps, setting the horses into a walk and lifted one hand.

“Goodbye.” Mary and Drew called.

Caro waved.

Then they all stood there watching as he sped the horses up into a trot and the carriage rolled on down the drive. Her heart shattered the moment he passed out of sight, but she could not reveal her feelings and so she swallowed hard.

Mary’s arm slipped through Caro’s. “Would you like to sit outside with Iris and me?” She looked at Drew and George as Drew walked ahead. “Perhaps we could even persuade Papa to sit with us, George, and read us all a story?

Drew glanced over his shoulder. “Perhaps I may. Seeing as it is such a fine day and I fancy sitting beneath a tree. So are we calling for lemonade, then?”

“Hu’ah!” George cheered.

Mary laughed.

Rob had gone, and everything would slip back to how it had been. The hole he’d left would heal up. Except she would not let it go back to exactly how it had been. She intended to live differently, to meet and speak to people, and build a life for herself that would make her less of a burden on Drew and help her feel more self-respect.

When Mary let Caro’s arm go to take Iris from the nursery maid, Caro glanced along the drive. She could feel the distance growing between them.
Goodbye, I love you, Rob, but I shall not hold you to anything. I am just glad that you came and you helped me, and that you gave me so much of yourself
.

“Caro.” Drew called from the doorway.

She turned and forced a smile as she climbed the steps back into her old life. But not her old self.

She had felt ashamed and blamed herself for Albert’s affection withering. This time she held no expectation of Rob’s feelings lasting, and so she would not be hurt when they died, or transferred to another woman. She would merely hold onto the moments he’d been wholly hers, in memories.

Chapter 20

Rob’s hands shook a little as they held the straps, when he steered his horses out of Drew’s gateway and onto the road. He felt a like a heel, and ashamed. He ought to turn back and make promises to her—offer to marry her, even if he had to say their engagement might be long. Yet he could not stand to do it, because he had too much pride. He did not have anything to offer her yet. He had his plan to fulfil and then he would be a man suitable to offer her marriage. But first he must make his name, do something of worth, and make a place for them in society.

But he had made himself a hypocrite he could no longer condemn Harry. At least Harry took his pleasures with the sort of woman who knew exactly where they stood. Harry only ever slept with women he paid. Harry did not defile genteel women. Rob had taken his pleasure within the very heart of his family. His father would kill him if he knew he’d done this and made no promise.